Loving with our brain
Published Feb 22, 2023 00:05 am
|
Updated Feb 22, 2023 00:05 am
THE VIEW FROM RIZAL
DR. JUN YNARES
February is the month of love, so we decided to digress from the pressing issues of the day and write a piece about matters of the heart – or is it of the brain?
Loving and being loved is at the top of most – if not all – people’s list of the things that are most important to them. This is why we put a premium on our intimate relationships. They are our sources of comfort and affirmation. It is hard to imagine life without love. We will do anything and everything to find it and keep it. Many times, we find it slipping away from our hands. We chase it and discover that the more we run after it, the farther it distances itself from us.
Sometimes, we are told that we act “crazy” when we are “in love” and that we let our emotions get the better of us.
We have been advised many times to “use your brain” when dealing with the issue of love and romance and not to let our “heart” dictate our actions.
“Gamitin mo ang utak mo,” our elders used to say.
Well, the fact is, we actually use part of our brain when we experience the various aspects of “love” – medically and scientifically speaking.
Our first understanding of love is that of a sensation. Mostly, it was our mothers who taught us that. We learned that when we were babies. Mom’s gentle touch and caress; her warm, light kisses; her affectionate gaze – all these gave us that sensation we later labeled as love.
From sensation, our understanding of love graduated into that of emotion. It’s something we “feel.” We believed that feeling resided in our hearts.
Doctors and psychologists, of course, have always told us that feeling comes from that part of the human brain called the hypothalamus.
It appears, therefore, that the better way to express one’s feeling of love should, therefore, go like this: “I love you from the bottom of my hypothalamus.”
Love is in the brain and not the heart, as the saying goes – among scientists and doctors, at least.
That romantic feeling, doctors and scientists would explain, is the result of the production of a certain hormone. It’s called “dopamine.” When dopamine is released in the brain, we experience the feeling of pleasure. Somehow, we become addicted to that feeling of pleasure. This must have been the reason why substances that cause serious addiction are called “dope” – short, perhaps, for “dopamine.”
That must also be the reason why the feeling of romantic love gives people a “high.”
This also leads us to wonder if it is the “high” of the romance we are after. Could it be that the “high” triggered by the release of dopamine in the brain is what we refer to as being “in love?”
I am not sure we have full control of all our brain functions, much less over the frequency, intensity, and direction of the secretion of hormones. Should we then base our loving relationships on what is never certain?
What if we wake up one morning with no dopamine going to the hypothalamus? What if without the brain’s dopamine shot, we see the object of our love and discover that he or she has imperfections on the skin, a rasp in the voice, odor in the breath, and unwanted fats in the various parts of the body?
Some would say, “I would still love that person despite all the faults and imperfections.”
When one says that, one would have chosen to love rather than just to be “in love.”
Love then becomes a decision and not just an emotion. The loving relationship would no longer be dependent on dopamine in the hypothalamus. It would now be based on the functions of a higher level of the human brain – the cerebral cortex. It is the part of our brain where we think logically and make rational choices and decisions.
Being in love is an emotion. Loving is a decision.
Our wish for all of our readers is that this month of love would give your hypothalamus extra shots of dopamine.
I also pray that beyond the month of love, you would all let the cerebral cortex help you to stay “in love” by rationally deciding to do so.
(For feedback, please email it to antipolocitygov@gmail.com or send it to Block 6 Lot 10 Sta. Barbara 1 cor. Bradley St., Mission Hills Subd., Brgy. San Roque, Antipolo City, Rizal.)
DR. JUN YNARES
February is the month of love, so we decided to digress from the pressing issues of the day and write a piece about matters of the heart – or is it of the brain?
Loving and being loved is at the top of most – if not all – people’s list of the things that are most important to them. This is why we put a premium on our intimate relationships. They are our sources of comfort and affirmation. It is hard to imagine life without love. We will do anything and everything to find it and keep it. Many times, we find it slipping away from our hands. We chase it and discover that the more we run after it, the farther it distances itself from us.
Sometimes, we are told that we act “crazy” when we are “in love” and that we let our emotions get the better of us.
We have been advised many times to “use your brain” when dealing with the issue of love and romance and not to let our “heart” dictate our actions.
“Gamitin mo ang utak mo,” our elders used to say.
Well, the fact is, we actually use part of our brain when we experience the various aspects of “love” – medically and scientifically speaking.
Our first understanding of love is that of a sensation. Mostly, it was our mothers who taught us that. We learned that when we were babies. Mom’s gentle touch and caress; her warm, light kisses; her affectionate gaze – all these gave us that sensation we later labeled as love.
From sensation, our understanding of love graduated into that of emotion. It’s something we “feel.” We believed that feeling resided in our hearts.
Doctors and psychologists, of course, have always told us that feeling comes from that part of the human brain called the hypothalamus.
It appears, therefore, that the better way to express one’s feeling of love should, therefore, go like this: “I love you from the bottom of my hypothalamus.”
Love is in the brain and not the heart, as the saying goes – among scientists and doctors, at least.
That romantic feeling, doctors and scientists would explain, is the result of the production of a certain hormone. It’s called “dopamine.” When dopamine is released in the brain, we experience the feeling of pleasure. Somehow, we become addicted to that feeling of pleasure. This must have been the reason why substances that cause serious addiction are called “dope” – short, perhaps, for “dopamine.”
That must also be the reason why the feeling of romantic love gives people a “high.”
This also leads us to wonder if it is the “high” of the romance we are after. Could it be that the “high” triggered by the release of dopamine in the brain is what we refer to as being “in love?”
I am not sure we have full control of all our brain functions, much less over the frequency, intensity, and direction of the secretion of hormones. Should we then base our loving relationships on what is never certain?
What if we wake up one morning with no dopamine going to the hypothalamus? What if without the brain’s dopamine shot, we see the object of our love and discover that he or she has imperfections on the skin, a rasp in the voice, odor in the breath, and unwanted fats in the various parts of the body?
Some would say, “I would still love that person despite all the faults and imperfections.”
When one says that, one would have chosen to love rather than just to be “in love.”
Love then becomes a decision and not just an emotion. The loving relationship would no longer be dependent on dopamine in the hypothalamus. It would now be based on the functions of a higher level of the human brain – the cerebral cortex. It is the part of our brain where we think logically and make rational choices and decisions.
Being in love is an emotion. Loving is a decision.
Our wish for all of our readers is that this month of love would give your hypothalamus extra shots of dopamine.
I also pray that beyond the month of love, you would all let the cerebral cortex help you to stay “in love” by rationally deciding to do so.
(For feedback, please email it to antipolocitygov@gmail.com or send it to Block 6 Lot 10 Sta. Barbara 1 cor. Bradley St., Mission Hills Subd., Brgy. San Roque, Antipolo City, Rizal.)